Sealy protects home court

Lady Tigers beat Maidens, look to refresh on weekend off

Marleeza Williams (1) was credited as being one of Coach Branch’s sparkplugs off the bench, providing the stifling defense and powerful rebounding to help the Lady Tigers.

Cole McNanna

Posted
Thursday, November 28, 2019 6:08 am

By Cole McNanna

Despite some injuries leaving only three reserves for the Sealy Lady Tigers’ basketball squad, an early lead powered a second win at home, 46-32 over Ganado, leading into a weekend off.

“We’ll get some practice time tomorrow (Wednesday), Thursday morning we’ll get a practice in there as best we can, we’ll be off Friday Saturday Sunday and we’ll practice Monday and play Tuesday before Thanksgiving break,” explained head coach Anthony Branch after last Tuesday night’s win. “We’ve got to have three solid practices leading up to that game.”

That game kicking off a three-day break from school was played against the neighboring Bellville Brahmanettes at Sealy High School Tuesday afternoon and Branch added the expectations are always elevated for a game against the rivals, but he understands his team can’t get too low or high on any one opponent.

“I won’t say it’s just another game, you always want to beat your rival and that would be nice but I want them to play up every game – no matter who it is, whether it’s Ganado or Bellville - our level of play should be up high, we should play that way with high effort, flying around,” the coach said. “We’ve just got to get better on the defensive end, we did take one charge but we’ve got to do a better job rebounding, our post players have to do a better job of putting the ball right up instead of putting it down.”

One part of the rebounding effort Branch did like to see was a pair of players who came off the bench and provided just the fresh legs he was looking for.

“My two best rebounders are coming off the bench with Marleeza Williamson and Megan Schaaf. Those two do a great job of coming in and rebounding and blocking out; they just go get the ball,” he said.

That effort helped secure a win down the stretch over the Ganado Maidens after securing an early lead for a second win at home in as many chances to start the Lady Tigers’ season.

“I think we were able to score just enough; we were able to defend the ball and keep it from entering the paint,” Branch said. “There were times that they made it into the paint, they hit some shots off the glass, we just got caught sometimes not being where we were supposed to be.”

On the offensive side, sophomore Evelyn Harrington led the way with 21 points and junior Brylie Bond joined her in the double-digit point total with 11 by shooting 50% from the field with both guards hitting a pair of 3-pointers.

Julia Jurecka added five points, Heaven Hernandez and Williams had four points apiece and Eastlynn Cloud scored one point.

Avery Oliver led the rebound category with nine, seven of which came on the defensive side. Harrington and Cloud both pulled down eight, Schaaf grabbed seven, Williams had three and Hernandez and Jurecka each registered a pair of rebounds.